Village Voice Writer States Falsely That Reason Defends Bigoted Bakers More Than the Right of Gays to Be Legally Married

As Nick Gillespie observed a bit earlier, Robert Draper's New York Times Magazine piece, "Has the 'Libertarian Moment' Finally Arrived," has provoked an interesting and occasionally comedic series of reactions among people who are invested in disliking libertarians. Roy Edroso, the sour media critic of The Village Voice, who has previously just made stuff up about me in the course of venting his distaste, is back at it again on that front, in a column that otherwise has an interesting frame about elected libertarian Republicans tending to be socially conservative.

The stuff about Reason is wrong, and worth correcting:

Libertarians, like members of any underpopulated political group, like to portray their movement as a tent big enough to accommodate a wide range of liberty-lovers. For example: Want to free the weed and drink raw milk? You might be a libertarian! In our experience, however, some liberties are less important in libertarian land than others.

Gay rights is generally an easier lay-up for libertarians – remember, many gays are male and white! – but it still presents problems of the sort you don't find among the statist Democrats, again probably owing to the need to peel off Republican voters. […]

At Reason, you're far more likely to see defenses of the poor bakers who are being forced to bake gay wedding cakes than defenses of gay marriage. When NBA player Jason Collins came out as gay in 2013, Matt Welch explained to Reason readers "The Importance of Allowing People to Say That You Can't Be a Gay Basketball Player and a Christian," in which he focused on the real victims of the controversy, such as ESPN's Chris Broussard, who was "beaten to a rhetoric pulp" (that is, briefly criticized on Twitter) just for saying gay people are Hell-bound. (Hilariously, Welch managed to work Martin Luther King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" into this article.)

Bolding mine. Far more likely sounds like a testable claim, so I hit the Reason.com search button for "gay marriage," sorted the results by "newest first," and started counting which results included defenses of gay marriage, and which included defenses of people from punishment by the government over their unwillingness to serve gay customers. The first result, a Steve Chapman defense of gay marriage over stupid government attempts to ban its recognition, includes some verbiage that is relevant to the broader discussion:

Experience also prompted Americans to reassess their objections to same-sex marriage. For a long time, it was seen as a radical fantasy. In 1996, only 27 percent of Americans supported it.

But the world changed. Gays grew more open about their sexual orientation. Same-sex couples became more common. In 2004, Massachusetts allowed gay and lesbian couples to wed, and in 2008, Connecticut followed. Other states let them enter into civil unions that approximate marriage.

Opponents predicted disastrous effects. But the Almighty did not send a plague of frogs or otherwise evince outrage. The more exposure Americans had to the notion of gay marriage the less they minded. Today, it has the support of 55 percent of Americans.

Bolding again mine, to underline an important point: Back when same-sex marriage was seen as a radical fantasy, particularly by those whose political loyalty lay with the two major political parties, Reason was making the often lonely case for legal recognition.

For instance: As recently as 2003, the Village Voice (to pick one publication out of a hat) felt the need to publish calls-to-action such as "The Radical Case for Gay Marriage: Why Progressives Must Join This Fight." Reason, on the other hand, was editorializing in favor of gay marriage way back in 1975:

The marriage laws are obviously discriminatory and thereby deny to homosexual couples legal benefits granted to heterosexual marrieds—lower tax rates, immunity from being forced to testify against a spouse, etc. Probably the most blatantly homophobic institution in our society is the military and security establishment. The armed forces' refusal to allow homosexuals to join or to stay in the military reaches beyond the issue of whether homosexuals should have a chance to receive the training, pensions, and other benefits their tax dollars are paying for-veteran status and an honorable discharge affect a man's chances of getting a job, being admitted to a school, receiving preferential insurance rates, etc. […]

In the final analysis a libertarian society will have to be a tolerant society, since not initiating force against your neighbors means that you are willing to let them live as they please no matter how alien their life style is to yours, as long as they aren't initiating force against you (if you don't like them, you don't have to deal with them). This political commitment to tolerance is the main thing that distinguishes libertarianism from conservatism[.]

If Reason.com readers are indeed "far more likely to see defenses of the poor bakers who are being forced to bake gay wedding cakes than defenses of gay marriage," then that allegedly overwhelming emphasis has stubbornly failed to materialize over the past six weeks.

This despite the fact that, given the near-certain inevitability of gay marriage being legal across the land soon, the more contentious philosophical argument in front of us is no longer the question of same-sex recognition, but rather the ancillary legal and societal questions, including (yes!) whether individuals will be allowed to express their bigotry without government sanction. When discussing that particular issue, Reason writers are likely to formulate it not as a hi-five for odious behavior; but rather like Sheldon Richman does here: "The test of one's commitment to freedom of association, like freedom of speech, is whether one sticks by it even when the content repulses."

Now let's talk about Roy Edroso's typically misleading characterization of me. In the cited section above, Edroso paraphrases me as saying "the real victims of the controversy" over NBA center Jason Collins coming out as gay were those who were "criticized" for "saying gay people are Hell-bound." This is a willfully inaccurate rendering of what I wrote.

I think today is a wonderful, watershed day for people…to live as open and free as they wanna be […]

Jason Collins in his essay from today talked about how former NBA great Tim Hardaway had come around from being a rhetorical gay-basher to a strong supporter of gay rights. The country is changing fast, and while many of us are yelling faster!, it's important to recognize that a lot of people feel uncomfortable about it all. Better to have that conversation out loud, than let it fester.

Does that sound like I think the real victim of Jason Collins' lifestyle being controversial for far too long was some ESPN clown who thinks God hates the homsexualists? It takes a remarkable amount of basic intellectual dishonesty to reach that conclusion.

And yes, I referenced the "Letter From Birmingham Jail"—as an example of how "sometimes engaging with the I'm not ready to go that far just yet crowd brings out the best in activists." Given Edroso's middle-school snark about how gay rights are "generally an easier lay-up for libertarians" because "remember, many gays are male and white," it should come as no surprise that he is attempting to draw boundaries around who can and can't take inspirations from Martin Luther King.

And since Edroso was using my writing to support the wobbly thesis that Reason (and Planet Libertarian) were trying to somehow de-emphasize gay marriage "probably owing to the need to peel off Republican voters," here is video of me at the Conservative Political Action Conference doing precisely the opposite:

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317 responses to “Village Voice Writer States Falsely That Reason Defends Bigoted Bakers More Than the Right of Gays to Be Legally Married”

Many gays are women and some of them might even want to get married….funny how the village voice missed that.

I think this one should be chalked up as another example of how the left not only do not understand sexism and racism and homophobia but are actually racist, sexist and homophobic far worse then those they criticize.

it is amusing to watch the friggin village voice melt itself down into a reactionary rant against gays in an article preporting to be in support of gay marriage.

How long after gay marriage is legal nation wide will the left throw gays under the bus in a fit of rage when discovering that not all of them are Marxists after all?

Again, it’s not about truth; it’s about exploiting the mercurial speed at which the Internet-age news cycle travels to engage in consequence-free mudslinging. Roy Edroso served well in his role as gunsel for his Progressive masters, and is only one Selena Gomez sex tape away from having his sins be forgotten. Yet, the libelous claims shall stay tucked away in the minds of his flock, ready to be used as a cudgel anytime they feel threatened by facts and rigor.

Which is why….fuck them. Who gives a shit. They’re lying douchbags and their sheep are not smart enough or thoughtful enough to think for themselves. It’s all a popularity contest. The repost and retweet ignorant sanctomnious pc idenity bs so everything thinks they’re “enlightened”. Of course, they don’t know what they really even means.

Progs cannot fathom that one can be for the freedom of everybody. To them, if you are for the freedom of somebody to refuse service based on sexual orientation, you’re against the freedom of homosexuals (just to give an example).

who here is stopping gays from participating in anything, you disingenuous pussy? If a business owner is homophobic or racist or whatever, chances are his strategy will have poor results. Will you patronize a place that purposely discriminates against straights or libertarians or people you disagree with?

The existence of a baker that discriminates against gays is the required evidence necessary for favoring antidiscrimination laws. Only when gays have de facto equal access to the commerce of their society as straights will such laws be unnecessary.

When such laws were first devised, there was an obvious, cancerous discrimination regime in this country. Let me ask you this: would you support the CRA’s provision on public accommodation in the 60s? Or did so-called freedom of association rights of businesses that cater to the public trump even then?

the existence of baker who discriminates against gays is evidence only of a market being unserved, and some enterprising baker will fill the void. The discriminating baker not only loses gay business but likely turns away straight people who are put off by that type behavior.

You have no right to someone else’s labor. Neither do I. The Greensboro sit-ins were the work of non-govt people protesting something they felt was wrong, and they were addressing something much farther reaching than access to a lunch counter.

Comparing yourself to blacks of that era is a bit insulting to them. There is quite a different between govt-mandated discrimination and one store owner acting.

spare me, bo. Comparing gays to blacks is insulting and intellectually dishonest. Yes, it’s a shame that gays for years were forced to live lies and to hide in the shadows. Tell me again how many black folks did that.

D-A, You’re tossing softballs; Tony will respond to questions like that as would a politico; simplistic answers calculated to offend he fewest and totally devoid of any investment on his part. Ask him if he likes puppies and kids.

ironically, Mitt Romney was all for civil unions when Barack was still unequivocally anti-SSM. Romney at least made a semantic allowance; Barack bravely waited until after NC had a referendum on the issue before using Biden as a stalking horse to test his “evolution” on the issue.

It’s a wonder you even bother serving up this weak sauce anymore. Yeah I’ve supported politicians who were against gay marriage. All of the politicians I ever had a choice among were against gay marriage until recently.

Tony|8.11.14 @ 8:09PM|# “It’s a wonder you even bother serving up this weak sauce anymore. Yeah I’ve supported politicians who were against gay marriage. All of the politicians I ever had a choice among were against gay marriage until recently.”

It’s a wonder you claim to be anything but imbecilic. But then as a moral cripple, it’s no surprise you think you ‘had to choose’ those cretins.

Here’s the Village Voice comparing Obama’s position on gay marriage to Gary Johnson during the last election:

“If Obama believes that marriage equality is a constitutionally guaranteed civil right, as former Governor Gary Johnson does, than it can’t be abridged by the states. Forty-four states currently ban gay marriage. Under Obama millions of Americans in most states will continue be denied the right to marry the person of their choice.

“Obama’s position is that, while he personally supports gay marriage, those 44 states are perfectly within their rights to arbitrarily restrict the access of certain individuals to marriage rights based solely on their sexual orientation.”

“Obama’s position is that, while he personally supports gay marriage, those 44 states are perfectly within their rights to arbitrarily restrict the access of certain individuals to marriage rights based solely on their sexual orientation.”

Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but what the Village Voice is saying, here, is that Obama’s position on gay marriage was basically the same as Barry Goldwater’s position on the the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

What do you think of people who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the same principle, Tony?

“What the Village Voice is saying, here, is that Obama’s position on gay marriage was basically the same as Barry Goldwater’s position on the the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

I should clarify that this comparison of theirs was in comparison to Obama’s position on gay marriage–after he came out in support of it. They’re saying that he’s still nowhere near as good as Gary Johnson on the issue.

Before Obama said personally supported it, his position was that “Marriage is between a man and a woman”, and that a direct quote of Obama.

For president, there have been 1 or 2 pro-gay-marriage candidates on the ballot nationwide every election recently.

Ron Paul was in the Republican primary two years ago, does he count? Other than he, I am not aware of any. I don’t remember a third party candidate on an Oklahoma ballot for several years now. While I don’t pay that close attention to democrat platforms, I am pretty sure even the dems haven’t run any.

I did vote for Harry Browne back in the ’90s but his position was to get government out of personal relationships so he doesn’t count either.

I am not so sure about this, rob. It isn’t just difficult but near impossible, it seems. Tony may actually have never had an opportunity to vote for a pro-gay-marriage candidate unless Ron Paul in a Republican primary counts.

Now I am going to gargle bleach and ammonia for the self disgust I feel finding myself, mildly, defending Tony.

No. If anything my post above asks the question of why you pile on lies and bile filled hate on a political philosophy and movement that does a better job of advocating and supporting positions that you hold dear.

But I didn’t ask that either. I know the answer to that. It is because you are pile of shit.

This is a silly attack on Tony. It’s not unreasonable to support one of two major candidates who opposes something you find important when they are better on other things you find important, and that describes Obama in both of his runs

Obama had done more to get the HRC wish list than any previous President. He withdrew the DOMA appeal, he appointed justices who vote for gay rights, he got DADT lifted, he’s nominated openly gay ambassadors and judges…

Exactly. This is why this is so weak. Obama is without any question the most pro-gay-rights president in history. I’m the one this affects. I’ve lived the second-class status. This is my experience–you guys are just pulling a lame gotcha out of your bag of bullshit while actually advocating the legally sanctioned discrimination against gays! Just spare us.

Tony, most libertarians don’t want or like discrimination against gays. We abhor it, like we do people who discriminate against blacks or Jews or what have you. We just don’t support the government using coercion to fight it. We worry about where that slope ends, and some of us honestly think it can be counterproductive to things like acceptance of gays in society. Gay rights is rolling along in public sympathy, why damage this by making martyrs of bigots? It’s not as if they are in a position to hurt gays economically much today, but the loss in public sympathy could be significant.

And I don’t support government implicitly endorsing discrimination in public accommodations against gays, possibly especially because such laws already exist for other minorities. Maybe an even bigger problem than the lack of protection itself would be that law treats LGBT minorities different from other minorities.

He’s always been polite to me even when I disagree with him (which is the usual). I’ve seen him be unkind here to others, but he surely gets worse than he gives in that area.

I don’t know what actually motivates him of course, but I do know that a gay rights supporter who supported Obama in 08 and 12 was certainly not being hypocritical. Anyone with a passing familiarity with what gay rights organizations have been wanting (some of which I oppose btw) the past ten years can see that they got an actual Presidential administration that has and is working to get them about all of it.

Look, in a couple of years many of us are going to have to decide to vote for (hopefully) Rand Paul as the GOP nominee or whoever the LP nominee is. As a big supporter of Paul I can still safely say that he will not take as many and as strict libertarian positions as whoever that LP nominee is. If we vote for Paul because we see a chance to enact some of what we want at the price of some ‘impurity’ would that make us not care about libertarianism? That’s silly.

I don’t support you because, despite your alleged support of gay equality (and judging by the hoi polloi, you could mostly fail to give two shits on the matter), on many major issues I strongly disagree with you. Barack Obama was the candidate who most aligned with my views in both of his elections (though not necessarily in the primary, in which I didn’t vote for him).

This is leaving aside the fact that I believe it a matter of absolute fact that the eventual winner of a presidential election is going to be either the Republican or Democratic candidate.

Have you ever voted for a candidate who had even one stand that violated your position? Were you supporting that stand, or holding your nose on it in the hopes of getting what you wanted in several other areas?

You’re against the freedom of homosexuals to participate as fully in their society as heterosexuals, commerce being an important part of society.

This is true only to the extent that “their society” is a non-libertarian society. A bigoted baker should be as free to decline service to homosexuals as a homosexual baker should be free to decline service to bigots. Saying that heterosexuals are free to impose their views on others and therefore equality demands that homosexuals should be free to impose their views on others might seem logical, but it’s not a good argument.

And just as a thought experiment, suppose you had a Nazi baker who refused to serve a Jewish customer or a Jewish baker who refused to serve a Nazi customer. Would all of these situations be treated as the same situation in principle or is there some other principle that would allow for the homosexual baker and the Jewish baker to refuse service to the bigot and the Nazi, but not the other way around?

I’ve had this argument with progs before. Their answer is that nothing in the CRA prevents you from discriminating against someone for their political beliefs, so refusing service to Nazis or libertarians is okay-dokey.

No Tony, there are no “conflicting freedoms”, there is only personal freedom and personal responsibility. Practically speaking, that requires a minimalist government. If some bigot doesn’t want to bake me a cake for my wedding, be assured that I don’t want to give him the income that he would derive from it. We are both free to get on with our lives and he can starve for all I care. The whole problem with all of these straw-men is that the damn government has its nose in everything.

Your freedom from violence restricts my freedom to commit violence against you. On the contrary, every freedom conflicts with another. The whole business of society is determining which are the ones that trump the others.

But let me tell you why. Saying certain rights are “natural” is to say that they are beyond debate. That’s the whole point. Of course no rights are “natural.” That’s ridiculous. Rights are things people invented a couple hundred years ago.

Sometimes I think you get too much shit here, Tony. But your idiocy is really on display in this thread. Ignoring things that don’t support your argument, twisting other peoples’ arguments to support your argument, and just generally acting dismissive towards anything that might possibly go against your beliefs.

Give me a fucking argument. Don’t say “same thing”. If you claim to believe in freedom, you have to believe in natural rights. I don’t give a fuck where you think those rights come from. Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Magic Sky Fairy, Gaia, Bill Cosby, whoever the fuck. I don’t care. If you think that we only have negative rights — rights given to us by government — then they can be taken away. Easily. Which seems to be what you want, judging from what you’re saying here.

Andrew, in the event that Tony has checked out of this thread, I think I can shed some light on what his answer might be. I’ve had similar arguments with him before. He can correct me if I’m wrong.

Tony doesn’t believe in freedom, not as you and I understand it. Tony believes in force. If someone can kill you without facing any negative consequences, then you don’t have a right to life. If someone else can protect you, or at least punish your murderer on your behalf, then you do have a right to life.

Tony would prefer that government have a monopoly on force. To mitigate the obvious risks that poses, Tony wants government to be democratic. He’s accepts that might not always work out the way he wants, be he doesn’t know of any better system.

If democratic government is willing to protect you from something, you have a right to it. If it isn’t willing to protect you, you don’t have that right. This is why Tony says that rights are legal establishments. It’s also why he can say that the Jews that died in the Holocaust didn’t have a right to life (sorry for Godwinning it, but that is the common example).

To avoid the “might makes right” scenario, Tony will argue that murder (or something else) is wrong, even if state sanctioned, because Tony doesn’t want to get murdered, and so he shouldn’t support the murder of others.

That philosophy seems to me to be a tautology. The people with the guns make the rules. Well, yeah.

Tony wants the rules to be set by democracy, and the argument he wants to use to persuade his fellow men is utilitarianism. He thinks this will result in a pleasant society.

Libertarians try to come up with a well reasoned, logically consistent moral code founded on some basic assumptions that they think they can justify. We want that moral code to inform what the rules should be. For this, we are accused of believing in magic.

You’re accused of invoking magic as a conversation stopper. Your ideas about how society should be structured are the correct ones and nobody is allowed to disagree, because nature says so. All I’m asking is that you constrain yourself to what you’re claiming you’re appealing to. Saying we can’t have a welfare state because “logic!” is not to make a logical argument, but just to invoke the word.

If you claim to believe in freedom, you have to believe in natural rights.

I think he made it pretty clear: He doesn’t believe in “freedom”; he believes in the freedom to do things he approves of (like marry someone of the same sex), and hates the freedom to do things he doesn’t approve of (like refuse to bake a same-sex wedding cake).

The question is “how can you possibly hope to have a law to enforce kindergarten ethics (treat other people like you want them to treat you, don’t touch their stuff, mind your own business)” Answer is “you CAN’T”. It won’t work, it has never worked, and it will never work. So rather than stupid law patching stupider law patching the original foolish law, the solution which libertarians come up with is: reduce the number and scope of laws to the absolute minimum.

You’re wrong, but let’s just pretend you’re right. Let’s say that the right of a baker to discriminate against gays is in conflict with the right of gays to get a wedding cake.

You’re a self-proclaimed utilitarian, so which of these things is more harmful?

1) A gay couple has to go to another bakery to get their wedding cake. It may be hurtful to have been discriminated against, but they still get a cake. 2) A baker has to violate a deeply held belief, or pay a fine (presumably), or maybe even lose their livelihood.

And let’s not forget that in option 1), a boycott can still extract a financial toll on the bigoted baker.

Even on utilitarian grounds, I can’t see how you can justify your position.

The CRA was enacted in an environment in which discrimination posed substantial harm to minorities and effectively extinguished any chance they had to participate fully in society, let alone succeed in it. My main issue is that as long as that law, which protects racial and religious minorities among others, and other laws protecting the disabled and others, exist, sexual orientation ought to be added. The fact that they haven’t been yet is actually evidence in favor of their extraordinary challenge in society. It’s not like gays had it so great in the 1960s and were for that reason overlooked. Quite the opposite.

So protecting the right of people to participate fully in the commerce of their society when otherwise that right is severely diminished is the obvious utilitarian preference. The fact that you guys are all bending over backward to defend a company that exists today that wants to discriminate is a bit curious. They’re proof that discrimination against gays exist. They’re proof that commerce is not equally accessible. At what point does the right to discriminate become more important on utilitarian grounds? When nobody is regularly discriminated against.

In other words, in your view, public accommodation laws aren’t really about ensuring that minorities that might be discriminated against have access to the goods and services that others do. It’s about using state-backed force to punish and destroy people you disagree with.

Oh, and with your above comment in mind, if you force all the bigoted bakeries out of business, then you haven’t actually increased access to bakeries for gays. You’ve just decreased access for everyone else. So yet another hole in your utilitarian argument.

You’ve obviously never been to Provincetown in July or August. The maitre’d is going to seat the two gay men before he seats the straight couple (and long before he seats the two women!). It’s just business (gay guys eat more, and overtip), but it sure looks like discrimination against the straight couple.

I didn’t say any were, I said that (in our libertarian ideal) they could be discriminated against. I’ve certainly been discriminated against, though I can’t recall any instances of discriminatory commerce. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are examples.

More relevant to the discussion, they should be allowed to, and thus there is no inequality of freedom. Everyone’s ability to trade is, naturally, bound by others’ willingness or unwillingness to trade. A co-op board refusing to accept my request to rent an apartment at their asking price does not violate my liberty to rent apartments.

Tony, there is a difference between being free to participate in commerce, and having a right to receive a service from a particular individual. They can always go buy a cake from a different baker. One bakery not baking them a cake doesn’t exclude gays from commerce.

If we were in a situation where every baker in town was refusing to service gay weddings, THEN you might have some sort of argument, but we’re not. We’re talking about one couple.

And you’re talking about excluding that couple ENTIRELY from commerce, based upon their religious beliefs. You’re not talk about protecting the right of gays to participate in commerce. You’re talking about institutionalized discrimination against people whose beliefs you don’t like, forcing THEM entire out of the public marketplace so that no gay person ever has to deal with a single person, anywhere, ever, saying “no”.

e were in a situation where every baker in town was refusing to service gay weddings, THEN you might have some sort of argument

Which was the situation in the era of the generation of these laws. Discrimination created such a burden on the very livelihoods of people because of their skin color, that it became necessary to consider skin color in antidiscrimination law to rectify that crime against humanity.

Gays are only just beginning to gain those same protections. Take that for what you will, but I don’t see it as a position of extra privilege.

And while I begrudgingly support some protections for religious belief (the thing you’re treating as more valid than the other traits, despite the CRA treating it as more suspect), in all respect, fuck the religious bigots. Let their business die. They have no right to a prosperous business. Nobody does. Nowhere in the constitution does it say you do, not even if you’re an oil company. They have the choice to pretend not to be bigots. Gays don’t have that choice when they’re planning their gay wedding.

Of course nobody has the right to a prosperous business. It’s a free market and people can choose not to patronize them. You don’t need a law forcing them to do something they find morally objectionable for that to be the case.

They have the choice to pretend not to be bigots.

They have the choice to pretend they don’t have the religious beliefs that they do, or else be excluded from commerce.What the fuck kind of tolerance is it where people have to be, er, “in the closet”, about their faith in order to participate in commerce?

Here we see how Reason advocates state-recognized SSM out of *pure idealism.*

The Village Voice/SJW crowd already *knows* – because feelz – that Reason is a Koch-funded apologist for moustache-twirling hetero white males dumping oil into lakes full of baby ducks.

You can spend enormous energy promoting state-recognized SSM, you can call its opponents all the names in the book, you can cheerlead every victory it wins, but they’ll never accept you as comrades, because the SSM movement was never about libertarianism.

The SSM movement is an “I want cake” movement – conscripting bakers, wedding planners, and every other business large and small into supporting this movement – and punishing those who don’t by government force – is so deeply embedded in the movement’s goals that there is simply no room for libertarians except as useful idiots at the movement’s earliest stage. That stage is over, the useful idiots are no longer needed, and libertarians will find themselves denounced with all the rest of the counterrevolutionaries.

Look at what happened to the Girondins. They started out as eager cheerleaders for the French Revolution, then after they had served purpose, in the blink of an eye, they had become counterrevolutionaries and the Jacobins were cutting their heads off.

I disagree. First, i think there are a number, perhaps even a great number of SSM supporters who legitimately wanted to see SSM happen. I dont think its fair to cheapen what they did simply to respond to the Village Voice/SJW crowd.

Amongst that crowd, and, id go further to say quite a few dyed in the wool progs, the SSM movement is about moral posturing. They relish in the opportunity to imagine themselves as everyones moral and intellectual equal. This is why they push back so hard against libertarians being in favor of SSM, it cheapens their claim of exclusive moral high ground. All of them imagine that their later day support for SSM makes them the equivalent of the freedom riders or some other actual hero. This is also why they rankle so hard at the MLK reference, they imagine themselves as the intellectual heir of MLK, and anyone else who tries to claim that is the direst of enemies.

no room for libertarians except as useful idiots at the movement’s earliest stage. That stage is over, the useful idiots are no longer needed

I would argue libertarians have become a threat and therefore have lost their usefulness and need to be attacked. (really no different then recent attacks from socons and conservatives) The left have not won…if they had we would not be reading self contradictory lies written in the Village Voice but instead would be up against a wall wearing blind folds.

In the final analysis a libertarian society will have to be a tolerant society, since not initiating force against your neighbors means that you are willing to let them live as they please no matter how alien their life style is to yours, as long as they aren’t initiating force against you (if you don’t like them, you don’t have to deal with them).

Sure does sound to me like you were defending the rights of bigoted bakers back in 1975. It’s all well and good to be tolerant toward the people we like, but don’t expect us to tolerate the ones we don’t.

Fuck a libertarian society, which is one reason we’ve failed for 40 years.

We need to stop promoting the libertarianism for ourselves, instead of freedom for everybody. Voters can smell it at a hundred yards,

In a libertarian society, we’d all live in gated communities with private police forces and competing court systems. John Galt’s statue stands in every town square.

In a free society, Galt’s Gulch is next to a Marxist commune ? lesbians up the street from a community of Christian Fundies ?. retired Catholic priests across the field from Wiccans. Each community is voluntarily. And that statue would be Voltaire, inscribed: “I disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.”

You see, we keep telling people (and ourselves) that everybody must convert to libertarianism. Libertopia isn’t even maximum freedom

Well Tony, you see, CU was *also* about about free speech and is reviled by the modern left. Their opposition to it, usually vehement opposition, belies your claim that modern liberals care about free speech.

Also, i dont think that ‘begging the question’ means what you think it means.

The Skokie case is well appreciated among liberals for its stark liberal approach to free speech.

So if you appreciate the ACLU’s stance to support the free speech of people they loathe, why don’t you appreciate support for the freedom of association (Another 1st amendment right as determined in NAACP v. Alabama!) of people we loathe? Kindly explain the difference, as to me they are the same in specie.

I appreciate that. Really. I don’t mind you choosing one freedom over another when they are in conflict (within reason). I just get pissed about hypocrisy such as what comes with your absolutist moral proclamations that only apply selectively.

Because even a freedom of speech that protects Nazis isn’t absolute when it conflicts with something else (the freedom from stampede in a crowded theater, to cite a cliche). These are vague phrases and their legal meaning can be anywhere on a broad spectrum. I don’t think freedom of association should include the right to discriminate in public accommodations, because the practical social horror that solves is so, so much more of a problem, one that extends the lack of freedom of a minority in many ways, than the freedom of bigots to discriminate. Discrimination is an action. Marching in a parade is speech. Sounds good to me.

Ok…let’s run with this for a while. Your line of argumentation suggests that you believe there should be no gay bars. If my wife and I lined up in front of a gay bar, would the bouncer let us in? If he didn’t, would you agitate for our right to enter? If not, why not? I am sincerely interested in your response.

Ok, fair enough. But as you know, that would be quite harmful to gay/lesbian culture. A gay bar is a safe place for a man, who may or may not be openly gay, to meet with like-minded individuals for collegiality and romantic adventure. The introduction of people who do not share that culture might have a chilling effect upon those gay men, some of whom might not be able to fully express themselves in their daily lives. Is that too worth sacrificing on the altar of public accommodation on the off chance that a baker might be an asshole?

I don’t know if you’re aware, but straight people go to gay bars all the time. Sometimes as my companions. I fully appreciate the idea of a gay space, but I don’t think government needs to endorse it officially. Straight people are welcome at gay bars, but they should observe gay bar etiquette. Believe it or not I do value etiquette as a major nonlegal enforcement mechanism in society.

How is etiquette to be “enforced”? Let’s say a group of straight frat boys walk into this bar and start acting obnoxious (hazing rushes by making them go to a gay bar is common) and the bouncer asks them to leave. Then the frat boys sue the bar for discrimination. By your argument, the bouncer would be in the wrong even though the frat boys were making the other customers uncomfortable. Likewise, a gay man or woman could be seen as not observing “etiquette” in certain places by doing something as simple as holding hands. I don’t see the consequences of what you advocate to be preferable at all.

Manners are enforced by the threat of social exclusion. If you’re rude, people stop inviting you around

Businesses are allowed to eject patrons for being obnoxious. The reasons they’re not allowed to eject patrons are very narrowly defined in the CRA and other legislation.

And etiquette is not as relativistic as you’re claiming. Being obnoxious is rude. Holding hands is not. If anyone sees a difference between straight couples holding hands and gay couples holding hands, they have bigger issues than manners: they are bigots.

a group of nazis speaking is nowhere near the same as someone potentially causing harm to people by yelling ‘fire.’ There is no conflict at all there. And since we’re worried about vague phrases, public accommodation fits that bill. A private establishment is, well, private.

So to be clear then, when you said above that “The Skokie case is well appreciated among liberals for its stark liberal approach to free speech.” you were not including yourself as one who appreciated that case? I ask because your response here seems to indicate that you only care about freedom of speech only so long as it doesnt have (what you perceive as) negative consequences.

And of course we can define “public accommodations” as widely as we choose. Thus, gay bars can be public accommodations. As can the Rotary Club. And once the Dale decision is overturned, the Boy Scouts. We can move on from there to forcing the Catholic Church to provide communion to Hindus. (“Hey, it’s open to the public isn’t it? That makes it a public accommodation! We aren’t going to give a pass to religious bigotry!”) And the Gay Olympics should be forced to let straights compete! To protect diversity, we must compel uniformity!

It isn’t about choosing one freedom over another. That’s the perspective of someone who really believes that universal consistent equal rights are impossible. That’s the perspective of someone who has ultimately thrown the principles of equality and justice out the window and just believes it’s all about getting power and privileges for his own kind.

You’re almost literally saying “It’s can’t be that rights are relative constructs! It can’t be because it makes me have a sad!”

What is a right? Think hard. Where did the concept come from. As you’re thinking, if at any point you hit a stopping point that resembles deities, unicorns, or other abstract sources of moral good, then step back and find a more rational path.

I think it get it now. The problem with the Nazis isn’t that they violated the rights of Jews and other people. It’s that the Nazi regime failed to confer certain rights that Tony would (presumably) have preferred that they had conferred. Thus, the Nazis didn’t violate anybody’s human rights. They merely killed and jailed a lot of people, people who had no inherent right not to be killed and imprisoned.

Rights are described as “natural” not as a cop-out, an appeal to religion, or a naturalistic fallacy. The concept of “rights” is a deduction from rational self-interest coupled with the recognition that man is ultimately and necessarily a social creature. It is this evolutionary reality – this biological trait of man – to which “natural” refers.

The Skokie case is well appreciated among liberals for its stark liberal approach to free speech.

You’re using a rather narrow definition of the word “appreciated” there. Read Nat Hentoff and Free Speech For Me But Not For Thee. The ACLU supported the right of the Nazis to march in Skokie right up until their oh-so-liberal supporters started yanking their donations to the ACLU on the grounds that free speech was all well and good as a general principle, but supporting the free speech of Nazis was taking the idea too far. The ACLU decided that while we may disagree with what you say we will defend your right to say it, but we won’t defend it to the death and declined to get any further involved with the Nazis and their pursuit of free speech because it cost them too much to do so.

Well I’m not defending anything to the death–I’m a utilitarian. Furthermore I don’t support the rights of Nazis to speak because I think they might have good ideas (the essence of the utilitarian value of free speech), but because it would open a legal precedent that could lead to suppressing other, good speech.

So you don’t think that forcing christian conservative bakers to bake a cake for a gay wedding might establish a precedent that could lead to forcing other people to do other things that violate their moral beliefs?

So you don’t think that forcing christian conservative bakers to bake a cake for a gay wedding might establish a precedent that could lead to forcing other people to do other things that violate their moral beliefs?

Step back into the cold, spare realm of utilitarianism. Requiring businesses to treat gays as the law already requires them to treat black people will very likely have something less of a negative social effect than the latter did. And it was still worth it then.

You know, until they decide that you just need to work directly for someone else because they deserve it. After all, you’re young and physically able. There’s a word for being forced to work for someone against your will. I wish I could remember what it was…

You stand up for their rights, you just don’t want to march for them. The whole problem is it all comes from an armchair.

A bigot has the right to discriminate if he’s allowed to do so. One might call it a natural right, as it exists without anyone interfering. Does that right, measured society-wide, contradict another society-wide right? Why yes, it does. The right to freely engage in commerce. I would not call that natural. But natural rights, as we’ve seen, are only the most grunty caveman sort. We can do better. Make a better right and make it compete with what you claim is better only because it is natural. Then let me explain the appeal-to-nature fallacy.

So it would be OK for the state to force some lawyer from the Human Rights Campaign’s legal office to represent the Family Research Council if FRC couldn’t find anyone else to handle a lawsuit against SPLC for inciting Floyd Corkins to shoot up their office? Or even to represent FRC in a slip-and-fall or copyright case?

I just realized that I was completely confused. I responded to Michael Hihn’s 8.12.14 @2:44PM post thinking it was Tony trying to defend his 10:18AM post. I now realize that Tony has been completely AWOL after tossing in that particular hand grenade.

But it still would be interested to see whether he thinks it’s OK for lawyers at Lambda Legal to be compelled to defend the killers of Matthew Shepard.

Prove it! Sooner or later someone decided to say “No thank you, I’d rather just take care of myself” and then it starts down the pathway of the IRS which leads eventually to Stalin or Mao.

I’ll take my chances with the “grunty caveman sort” of rights, i.e. the right to succeed or fail based on my own skill, determination and luck. I may starve or freeze or die of infection, but it will be *my* life and *my* death, so you can just butt out.

Further, we must treat all people _equally_ under the law. That means that everyone must be equally allowed to participate in commerce, not just the non-bigoted. That means the right of minorities to paricipate in commerce must be _equal to_ the right of bigots to participate in commerce. The only way to balance that right is to allow both buyer and seller the _equal_ right to opt-out of any transaction. That is minorities can take their business elsewhere, and so can bigots.

Now, you may ask, what happens if 99% of the population refuses to do business with some people based on race? In that case, there is definitely a problem, but that’s not the situation we are in now, neither with respect to black, nor with respect to gays.

For adequate compensation, I will – right now – bake you or anybody else a cake, Tony.

If you can find a single instance of an individual who can’t get anyone in his local market to bake him a fairly-priced cake, you might have a leg to stand on with your appeal to a “right to engage in commerce”. Right now you’re, in fact, arguing for a “right to force service from the one guy in town who’s a dick and won’t serve you”.

Especially on your beloved utilitarian grounds, you can’t justify intervention because of a hypothetical which is clearly not about to come to pass in the real world.

Of course, you’ve already admitted that you’ve no ethical grounds for your stance, so I guess that about wraps it up.

It takes a remarkable amount of basic intellectual dishonesty to reach that conclusion.

Edroso doesn’t get paid for his honesty, he gets paid for polemics.

As much as I enjoy reading ungodly long libertarian self defenses, we may have reached the point where Reason–as centrist and diverse a libertarian population as you’re going to find–doesn’t need to respond at length every time some bomb-thrower publishes another anti-libertarian screed.

Maybe a nice twitter comment encouraging Roy to the effect that another three years of libertarian bashing might just make him Slate material.

It’s always helpful to have a pre-written article to hand to your progtard facebook fuckface “friends” who feel the need to share every anti-libertarian article they come across because Ayn Rand selfish blah blah blah blah blah.

there is something uplifting about left and right alike clutching their collective pearls over the libertarian dragon potentially pissing in their punchbowl. All the column inches, blog posts, and online articles that don’t just stretch credulity, they stomp it into the dirt, and pour concrete on top it. When you have to go that far to misrepresent people who dare not agree with you, seems that you may be worried others may agree with those people.

I’m one of those reason readers who defend close minded bakers stupid enough to turn away business over the “rights” same-sex betrothed activists. People have a right to enter into a union just as much as people have a right to withhold their work for whatever reason they see fit, and vice versa.

Beyond all reason reason has promoted the conflation of marriage licensing and marriage, and marriage recognition as the path to marriage equality, whereas the opposite is true.

Let’s see…Gillespie writing an article complaining about him not being anti-establishment anymore. ENB praising him for fighting Socons, Welch praising for his fighting the establishment and Jesse Walker praising for how he fought the FCC with Mork and Mindy.

I didn’t care for Mork & Mindy and most of his shtick, it got old after about 5 minutes. Dead Poets and Good Morning Vietnam were both decent movies but he was too over-the-top in both. I did like Fisher King, but then I’m a sucker for both Terry Gilliam and Jeff Bridges.

“the sour media critic of The Village Voice, who has previously just made stuff up about me in the course of venting his distaste”

So i looked up what this whole thing was, and apparently, VV douchebag said MW was somehow part of a right-wing cheer-leading squad agitating for the immediate invasion of Iraq…

for making fun of stuff like THIS =

” Take Colman McCarthy, the director of the “Center for Teaching Peace,” who in today’s L.A. Times argues that the proper response to these brutal murderers (9/11) is to say “We forgive you; we reject vengeance. And then, summoning still more moral courage, to ask them to forgive us for all of our violence – for being the world’s major arms peddler; for having a military budget many times greater than the combined military budgets of our alleged enemies; for our bombing of Grenada, Libya, Panama, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia; for supporting dictators; and for blindly believing the jingoism of President Bush.”

READ: Making fun of liberals is the same as being Pro-War

said Village Voice Douchebag called this “a distinction without a difference”.

Which makes it a lot easier to understand how he conflates libertarian “NOT FORCING PEOPLE TO DO SHIT” with being virulent homophobes.

“When discussing that particular issue, Reason writers are likely to formulate it not as a hi-five for odious behavior; but rather like Sheldon Richman does here: “The test of one’s commitment to freedom of association, like freedom of speech, is whether one sticks by it even when the content repulses.”

Sorry Gillespie, if you are not making full-throated calls for an Inquisition against the infidel, then you are the enemy. The people you allied yourself with on this issue are by and large not “tolerant”, they simply are intolerant of different things.

I agree that he gets more abuse than he gives. But he is notable for the fact that he unfailingly argues in bad faith. At times, we all fall into the trap of motivated reasoning. But every statement he makes is motivated reasoning. It is irrational to respect someone who acts like that.

He simply cannot give libertarians credit for anything ever. The surest sign of a pure partisan engaging in motivated reasoning is the inability to ever give credit to outgroup members. This fits Tony perfectly.

Witness, on this very thread, his comments about Gary Johnson.

He says that he gives GJ all the credit, except that he immediately follows that he would rather not be alive in a world where GJ is pres. It is like when politicians say “I take full responsibility, but it wasn’t my fault”. Then Bo adroitly asked him to name what would be so bad about a GJ presidency. Tony is caught so off guard that he can only sputter out that he just reflexively vomited that up, and hadn’t thought about it at all. He then moved on to a new subject as if nothing happened.

Tony is civil to Bo only because Bo irritates much of the commentariat here. It is funny, because Bo calmly exposed Tony so badly, and Tony totally missed it because he is so committed to acting like a loud drunk chick at closing time in a trashy bar.

And his defense of his own voting as a utilitarian choice, not a signaling one, is hilariously innumerate. Unless he is some amazing force multiplier who convinces thousands to vote because they are so inspired by his leadership, his one vote is always a rounding error.

You’re right, it’s a signal. Its only purpose is for me to later make a point about the folly of voting third party.

On this I’m willing to be convinced, but it’s gotta get me out of my chair and motivated to go to my local Greek church and fill in the box. In all honesty “I can’t live with myself if I endorse Mitt Romney by not voting” is all that’s keeping me going there.

“But he is notable for the fact that he unfailingly argues in bad faith”

Correct. Tony’s answers are direct only when he can easily make up an answer without danger of being called on BS (witness his exchange with HM above). Tony is every bit as sophomoric as Bo and uses those sorts of tactics to promote truly evil political ends.

First off, I’m civil to Bo (and thank you Bo for saying so; I’m sure I’ve been an utter bitch to you at times in the crossfire) because Bo is civil to me, and a thoughtful person to boot.

Give me credit for Gary Johnson. While I probably don’t really believe this, I basically conceded that he’d be a good president, it’s just that I don’t believe in voting for third parties in this country. That’s more than I’d say for any number of third-party candidates who more align with my politics.

Does that right, measured society-wide, contradict another society-wide right? Why yes, it does. The right to freely engage in commerce.

A right to freely engage in anything implies a right to not freely engage in that thing. Otherwise there is nothing free about said engagement.

While it is true that southern planters have a right to get their cotton picked, it is also true that black people have a right to decline to do so. Furthermore said black people are under no obligation to provide any explanation or justification for so declining.

The conflict here is not one of rights but one of wishes. If every time you encounter a a conflict of wishes your response is violence, it really isn’t possible to have much of a discussion.

So when slavery was perfectly legal and violently enforced, the slaves had a right to get up and leave? Did they really? Or are you saying they should have had that right, but at the time it was merely a wish?

So when slavery was perfectly legal and violently enforced, the slaves had a right to get up and leave?

Absolutely, yes, they did. The fact that someone was preventing them has nothing to do with rights that they possessed.

This time, you have confused the lack of ability with the lack of a right. I can only assume that if you lived in, say, 1855 Ohio, you would have “enforced” the Fugitive Slave Act and returned an escaped slave that you found sheltering in your barn on his way to Canada.

The fact that a murderer takes someone’s life does not change the victim’s right to life; it simply means that the murderer has violated that right.

Oh, I forgot, as far as you are concerned, if the majority votes to kill me, I have no right to live.

I’m referring to the fact that the law exempted black (and other classes of people) from the protection of the law when it came to laws regarding kidnapping, unlawful confinement etc.

I understand perfectly that the Three Fifths Compromise was for determining the population for representation, and apportioning taxes among the states and that if the south had had their way they would have counted every slave and every Indian 100% and that if some in the North had had their way it would have been )%.

I’m not even sure why you even challenged me on this. The idea that slavery can only be made legitimate by the State creating a class of chattel consisting of some men who are considered less than human is hardly original (as much as I’d like to claim that I thought of it all by myself), after all.

I’m not even sure why you assume it was a challenge. And my assumption did fit with your originally imprecise description,

The idea that slavery can only be made legitimate by the State creating a class of chattel consisting of some men who are considered less than human is hardly original (as much as I’d like to claim that I thought of it all by myself), after all.

After all, consider the fact that slavery pre-existed the Constitution and “the Three Fifths Compromise” by many hundreds (or even thousands) of years and every time it has been practiced it has been justified that the people thus enslaved were sub-human.

In fact the whole class/slave system has always been justified using that measure.

I had a Catholic Priest as a brother in law. Had been a missionary in Central America, into Liberation Theology. But I saw him give a great response on slavery in America.

Slavery had existed for all of human history (for him, Old Testament). It was brought to the colonies by Europeans. But America abolished it in only 75 years. Nothing to be proud of, but certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

ISAAC: slavery pre-existed the Constitution and “the Three Fifths Compromise” by many hundreds (or even thousands) of years and every time it has been practiced it has been justified that the people thus enslaved were sub-human. In fact the whole class/slave system has always been justified using that measure.

It traces to the earliest days of the Old Testament. Old Testament slaves were NOT sub-human.

Tracing back to the Code of Hammurabi, there were chattel slaves and DEBT slaves. Debt slaves evolved over the millennia into the indentured servants in the early Americas.

(If not for your belligerent trashmouth, I would not have gone all the way to show you as a total blowhard.)

“the party will have to change its policies on gay marriage or go the way of the dodo bird”

But it’s okay for libertarians to oppose gay marriage? Can we say tribalism?

We have two extreme social conservatives, father and son, using state power to impose their values on everyone ? as constitutional revisionists. No, the 10th Amendment does NOT make it a state issue. The 9th Amendment screams BULLSHIT to the counterfeit “strict constitutionalists.”

It ain’t Federallism. The Pauls promote a version of States Rights originated by the Klan. MY copy of our Constitution protects and defends ALL fundamental and unalieneable rights. When the Courts strike down bigotry, they strike it down at ALL levels of government. Can states run concentration camps? Can states violate due process? Were our Founders stupid enough to allow it? Or did they give us the 9th Amendment?

Do we really need the war on women linked to libertarianism? Homophobia?

Cato’s 2005 Zogby poll found the libertarian brand rejected by 85% of libertarians. Extreme socons have likely destroyed the GOP, as Goldwater predicted. What will they do to a movement whose brand is already toxic?

Ooops. I forgot. After 40 years, we’ve changed the definition of libertarian. It no longer means fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Only “purists” still follow the discarded definition. (Are we allowed to use dictionaries?)

Only to constitutional revisionists who ignore the 9th Amendment. – The Courts are required to defend basic human rights.

Saying that it isn’t a federal issue is not saying it should be banned.

Why else would anyone seek an unconstitutional change of jurisdiction, except to evade a federal court defense of fundamental rights? That’s why the Klan did it.

Rand repeatedly states his intention to overturn Casey (abortion) and seize marriage jurisdiction, and shows open contempt for the rule of law. See the “Sanctity of Life” page on his Senate website. http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=issue&id=3States should to be able to “pass anti-abortion laws” (at conception) ? which Rand believes his state will do (wink,wink) But ? wait for it ? he also sponsored a federal ban on all abortions. So he’s for federalism except when he isn’t! He vows to do everything he can to ban all abortions. And he’ll do it from whatever level of government he can. Open vote pandering. Go look.

MHThe Pauls promote a version of States Rights originated by the Klan.

MHAfter 40 years, we’ve changed the definition of libertarian. It no longer means fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

I thought it was adherence to NAP?

Sorry, I meant among voters. The World’s Smallest Political Quiz. We’ve been giving it for about 35 years, live and on one of the web’s busiest sites.

To millions of people, perhaps tens of millions, for over three decades we have told people, “If you’re fiscally conservative and socially liberal, you’re libertarian.” Politics, life, love, everything is about expectations. What do people expect of libertarians? How would you feel about anyone who intentionally betrays your expectations?

If you think I’m a shithead (stop laughing), wait til the media pounces on Rand. An extreme socon masquerading as a libertarian? They’ll be lining up with long knives. I’m the one with over 30 years of actual campaign activism.

I’m just defending the movement, same as I’ve done for 50 years

(I added just a little snarkiness here. when I saw your trash mouth thuggery just below. What would Jesus say?)